Viscous food products such as peanut butter, margarine, mayonnaise, jams and jellies, etc. are typically packaged in jars or tubs. The consumer is therefore required to place a utensil inside the jar or tub to remove appropriate amounts of food product as needed. As the jar or tub is emptied with continued use, removal of further food product becomes more difficult and increasingly messy, as the handle of the utensil and in some cases the hand of the user must enter the confined space of the jar or tub to scrape remaining product from the jar sides and bottom.
While many food dispensing containers and devices have been devised to simplify the use and application of viscous food products, these containers generally do not empty completely, resulting in wastage of a certain amount of food product. Further, these containers generally hold only small amounts of food product (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,932,530 to Bissel; U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,288 to Bergman), often requiring the user to remove the food product from its original bulk container or packaging and place small amounts of food product in the smaller dispensing container. Thus, the problem of removal and emptying the original bulk container is not avoided.
As a specific example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,083 to Schroeder describes a butter dispenser. Butter in solid form is removed from its original packaging and essentially skewered within the dispenser upon a threaded rod. An elevator platform about the threaded rod is raised by rotation of a lower knob to dispense butter from the top of the dispenser. The cross sectional area of the container does not vary from top to bottom and is similar to that of a standard stick of butter. The elevator simply pushes the entire solid, formed block of butter upwards towards the top opening where it may be scraped with a knife or applied directly to a food item. In this example, the solid stick of butter provides minimal resistance to advancement towards the opening, and the lower knob is therefore easily turned by the user to advance the solid butter within the dispenser.
It is therefore desirable to provide a bulk storage container and emptying mechanism for viscous food products to avoid the mess and food wastage common with current food containers and dispensers.